ABOUT US

REGENERATION VERMONT

Regeneration Vermont is a new nonprofit educational and advocacy organization that is working to halt the catastrophic consequences of Vermont’s adoption of degenerative, toxic and climate-threatening agricultural techniques, particularly within the dominant dairy sector. We are affiliated with Regeneration International, a bold new organization working to educate, unify and mobilize movements around agricultural-based solutions to the world’s climate, hunger and environmental crises.

Our goal is to redirect Vermont agriculture toward regenerative methods that provide economic justice to farmers and farm workers, protect and enhance the natural environment, produce healthy food products, promote animal welfare, and implement climate change remediation through an understanding of — and commitment to – healthy, living soils. The regeneration movement is especially concerned with educating citizens about the high greenhouse gas emissions from the current, industrial style of agriculture, but more importantly, showing how changes in farming, ranching, and forestry are the most significant vehicles for sequestering carbon and reversing climate change.

To accomplish our goals, Regeneration Vermont is proposing an extensive public education effort followed by (if necessary) creative, grassroots campaigns that take direct aim at corporations profiting from toxic, climate-threatening agriculture. We will tell the tragic story of degenerative agriculture, identify its corporate enablers, and then put them in the spotlight of marketplace activism. In Vermont, that means the dairy corporations. And that means Ben & Jerry’s and Cabot Creamery.

But it’s about more than targeting and putting a stop to toxic, climate-threatening agriculture. The regenerative agriculture that will replace it will not only put a halt to GMOs, toxic pesticides and factory animal production, but also employ practices that enhance soil quality and, as a result, sequester more and more carbon from the atmosphere. We are seeking to hasten the necessary transition that puts agriculture in its rightful place as a solution to many of our ecological woes, rather than the cause.

Regeneration Vermont’s founding team has extensive experience in the theory and practice of agriculture, forestry and ecology, living on the cutting-edge of regenerative change for decades. More than running successful organic farms, maple sugaring operations and practicing restorative forestry, we have also built and led grassroots movements, published books, magazines and articles, and designed and implemented educational and activist campaigns that have changed both the culture and agriculture. We live and speak regeneration, bringing both a reverence and understanding for what’s necessary and possible for our planet’s survival. Learn more about the Regeneration Vermont team here.

According to Cary Giguere, Agrichemical Program manager at the agriculture agency, the dramatic rise in glyphosate use was a result of increased cover cropping on cornfields, where herbicides like glyphosate are used for what they call the “burn-down,” or killing of the cover crop,” before corn planting begins in the spring. Learn more: regenerationvermont.org/gmo-corn-to-blame-for-soaring-pesticide-use/... See MoreSee Less

The Chilean government, facing skyrocketing rates of obesity, is waging war on unhealthy foods with a phalanx of marketing restrictions, mandatory packaging redesigns and labeling rules aimed at transforming the eating habits of 18 million people. Nutrition experts say the measures are the world’s most ambitious attempt to remake a country’s food culture and could be a model for how to turn the tide on a global obesity epidemic that researchers say contributes to four million premature deaths a year. Could this be a model for the U.S.? regenerationvermont.org/they-slayed-tony-the-tiger-chiles-war-on-obesity-took-cartoon-icons-off-j...... See MoreSee Less

Gov. Phil Scott sketched out a plan at a dairy conference Thursday that could include making money from the pollutant plaguing Vermont’s waterways — phosphorus.

👉Regeneration Vermont’s take by Michael Colby:Any attempts to seriously address the dairy/phosphorus/water quality problems must begin with turning off the pollution spigot: the vastly unsustainable amount of manure created by Vermont’s 135,000 mostly confined cows.But getting rid of farms is not the solution. Rather, we need to transition away from the industrial, commodity model that is holding all of Vermont hostage – not just the dairy farmers who are getting less than the cost of production for their milk, but also our environment, our culture, and – of course – our cows. Read more of our thoughts and the article on our website: regenerationvermont.org/scott-remove-phosphorus/... See MoreSee Less